Themes of memory, time and space circulate the creative process. The initial recording and documentation all incorporated time-relevant materials, for instance, recording non-diegetic sound from cassette tape tracks or shooting footage of moments in time that often imprint certain feelings or memories we tend to cherish.
The technicalities, being sound and film design, were all captured and edited by myself. This was an in depth 2 week process, that included pre and post production using Premiere Pro for editing. Digital assets were also used to enhance the thematic play of time. The term film was taken rather literally, considering the level of grain both visually and audibly. Not to mention that I forgot my camera—leading to 99% of the footage captured ended up being captured by my very old and very broken Xperia XZ2 phone. A mighty device indeed but nothing close to high quality HD camera abilities.
INSPIRATION
A while back I happened to be introduced to an Australian Film Maker, Malcolm Douglas. He would record the outback, natural landscapes and communities of Australia and its company. The way in which Douglas was able to document events of adventure and narrate the story was something I felt compelled to incorporate in my own way.
Other, more contemporary, videographers I’ve come across produced similar themes in their work. One in particular, ‘Cycle’ is an award winning short film produced and directed by Brendan Dwyer. Though the concept entails childhood trauma, the manner in which memory is distinguished through a ‘home video’ is something I admire when describing time and space through motion picture.
Other, more stylistic interests, have revolved around the qualities which a Super 8/ home video transmits. Beyond the surface, that is the colour grade and textural grain, there is an interest to how the camera is handled which communicates a rather intimate form of documentation. Although the unsteady and constant motion hand held footage can be, when paired with static and tripod-sturdy video, it does effortlessly hold a completely different meaning.
PRODUCTION
I started this project by recording & collecting a few pieces of sound material which I wanted to incorporate as foundation. As this project primarily encompassed ‘Video as Art’ my focal point was to integrate the daily pleasure of past memories, the audio track was something that weighed heavily on what type of footage i was to capture. The mood to go for.
I ended up collecting quite a bit of footage during my trip to the west coast. 99% of the footage captured ended up being captured by my very old and broken my Xperia XZ2 phone. A mighty cell-phone to say the least but nothing close to high quality HD camera abilities.
EDITING
As the aesthetic quality was intended to mimic a Super 8, the grainy video ended up working out. I did capture my intro footage on my Canon to help contrast this idea of reality against memory. By visually dissecting the video into two parts, the present being crisp/clear video and the past being grainy, helped me to better situate the mood and concept in the entire video.
It ended up being a bulky project, consisting of 3 duplicated nests. The film sequence, atmospheric music, diegetic sound FX, Video assets and FX and dissolved textural layering.
Overall, I had SO much fun experiment with texture and visualizing abstract concepts. The overall idea of transcending into a memory is something I tend to value and spend time contemplating, so being able to produce a video which reminisces on this topic really resonates.
